How to Bat in Softball

In softball, batting starts with a good hitting position, a short step or a replacement step, and also a lack of movement in the head when taking a swing. Learn about making contact with different pitches with help from a head softball coach and athletic director in this free video on softball batting techniques.

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Video Transcript

Hello everybody my name is Mark Schusterman. I'm the head softball coach and athletic director at The Gulliver Schools in Miami, Florida. In this clip I'm going to show you how to bat a softball. As you can see we're going to get into a good stance right here. Both Brittany and Sara are in a good stance. They are going to take the bat just above their shoulder, o'kay they're going to take a good short step, trigger and swing. Now we're going to go back into that good hitting position. Several points we want to highlight now. The first thing we want to talk about is the step. The step is going to be, some people even just replace it, some take a short step. We want to make sure our stride isn't too long because we don't want our head to change levels. We want as little movement as possible in our head so our step is short, our head is still right on the ball. Now here we go. Step, come to point of contact, o'kay you see where they have come to point of contact. You see right here there is a bend in this elbow, the bat, palm up, palm down, palm up, palm down. O'kay, the bat handle, we're almost we're on a plane. O'kay, now we're going to ride it through and then finish high. So several things to remember, stand off just to the side a second, Brittany get in the box. O'kay, here we go. We're going to hit an inside pitch. Come to point of contact. O'kay we want to hit it on the good part of the bat. We're hitting an inside pitch. See the way we have our bend here we have our strength so that we can take it and follow through. O'kay we're going to hit a pitch right down the middle of the plate. We're making contact right out in front of our hip. We're going to ride it the best we can and we're going to take it there. Now we've got an outside pitch. We're going to hit it deeper, o'kay because we want to be able to drive the ball out into right center field. So here we are we are taking that outside pitch. We are waiting, we are taking deeper, we are still riding the ball the best we can, extension and through. This has been Mark Schusterman. Thank you for watching.